PONE-D-21-06928

Well-being during COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of individuals with minoritized sexual and gender identities and cis-heterosexual individuals

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Buspavanich,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The two Reviewers made two conflicting judgments. In my opinion, I believe that the breadth of the sample collected and the correctness of the experimental design merit giving the authors a chance to respond to the Reviewers and revise the manuscript accordingly. I therefore urge the authors to resolve all comments from the two Reviewers. In particular, I urge the authors to pay particular attention to the issues raised by Reviewer 2 related to methodology (recruitment information) and proper interpretation of the data (e.g., between lesbian/gay and heterosexual individuals). Finally, I recall the importance of what Reviewer 1 raised regarding the use of a standard English language, which is a prerequisite for publication. I suggest that authors either state that the language review was conducted by a native English-speaking author or that they use a professional proofreading service.

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'Pichit Buspavanich received a research grant from Gilead. All other authors have no conflict of interest to declare. Sven Mahner reports Research support, advisory board, honoraria and travel expenses from AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Clovis, Eisai, GlaxoSmithKline, Medac, MSD, Novartis, Olympus, PharmaMar, Pfizer, Roche, Sensor Kinesis, Teva, and Tesaro.'

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Additional Editor Comments:

The two Reviewers made two conflicting judgments. In my opinion, I believe that the breadth of the sample collected and the correctness of the experimental design merit giving the authors a chance to respond to the Reviewers and revise the manuscript accordingly. I therefore urge the authors to resolve all comments from the two Reviewers. In particular, I urge the authors to pay particular attention to the issues raised by Reviewer 2 related to methodology (recruitment information) and proper interpretation of the data (e.g., between lesbian/gay and heterosexual individuals). Finally, I recall the importance of what Reviewer 1 raised regarding the use of a standard English language, which is a prerequisite for publication. I suggest that authors either state that the language review was conducted by a native English-speaking author or that they use a professional proofreading service.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript makes an incremental but important contribution to understanding mental health during the COVID pandemic. I have two suggestions for the authors. First, a short section on the research context would be useful to readers unfamiliar with Germany. For example, details on the German social safety net and how this may have offset some of the ill effects of the pandemic, such as unemployment, are things that may have a bearing on mental health status. If the German government had any responses to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic would also be relevant. Additionally, details on the legal and social climate toward gender and sexual minorities would be useful for understanding the mental health of this population. Such details about the local context could help show to what extent the results are generalizable in other locations. Second, the manuscript would benefit from a couple of rounds of careful editing. I noticed a number of grammatical errors and awkwardly worded passages that could use some cleaning up.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript addresses differences in well-being and depression between (1) sexual and gender minority individuals (SOGI) and their (2) cisgender heterosexual peers during the Covid-19 pandemic, using a German sample recruited from social media platforms. There are theoretical, methodological, and validity concerns that dampen enthusiasm for the manuscript.

The manuscript would benefit from stronger grounding in minority stress theory. This would allow the authors, for example, to remove stress from health outcomes (p.4), to distinguish between protective factors and covariates, and to specify hypotheses pertaining to protective factors. The authors imply that SOGI individuals will be more stressed by the pandemic and, thus, experience even poorer mental health than before the pandemic. This is not testable, given their data. The authors sometimes conflate findings and issues pertaining to gender minority individuals with those of sexual minority individuals, a problem apparent in the Introduction and Discussion.

The Method section would benefit from more recruitment information. As it reads, someone could not replicate the study. For examples, what chats were accessed on the social media sites and how was the study advertised to prospective participants. Such information may explain why the authors have more lesbians than gay men or bisexual women (Table 1). Data from representative samples of the population, at least in the US, indicate the opposite should have been found. This limitation needs to be addressed, given its validity implications. In addition, protective factors are not covariates and, thus, should be excised from such a listing. Address here the issue of raw and final scores that are mentioned in Table 2 and indicate which is used in analyses.

Be careful in the Discussion section. You indicate that all SOGI groups differed from heterosexual peers. However, the means between lesbian/gay and heterosexual individuals are often rather similar. When differences arise, so, too, do validity concerns that circle back to the sample. For example, fewer gay than heterosexual men meet cut-off for depression (38.9% vs. 46.3%). You indicate this finding is not significant. Nevertheless, the effect size seems noteworthy and it is contrary to expectations.

Issues Concerning the Tables:

1. Table 2 is confusing. It can be improved by focusing on the raw or final scores, as indicated above. Also, add the corresponding t-tests, p values, and d statistics for the last 2 rows, as it seems reasonable to compare the SOGI groups to Brähler’s data. I imagine most individuals in Brähler were heterosexual; please clarify in the table note. By “overall” sample, I gather you mean the analytic sample.

2. A table addressing Hypothesis 2 is necessary. It would provide the ANOVA test for well-being, the chi-square test for the depression cut-off, their effect sizes, and identify the significant pairwise comparisons.

3. For the current Table 3, please add the regression statistics for the significant moderating effects concerning the protective factors. Test moderating relations of sex by SOGI on outcomes.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Carina Heckert

Reviewer #2: No

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Well-being during COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of individuals with minoritized sexual and gender identities and cis-heterosexual individuals

PONE-D-21-06928R1

Dear Dr. Buspavanich,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Stefano Federici, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed my previous concerns, which has led to significant improvement and clarity in the manuscript.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Carina Heckert